ABSTRACT
On the rare occasions when scholars of late medieval music have invoked money in their historical conversations, its primary role has been to corroborate arguments concerning the cultural or political status of institutions and individuals, of patrons and artists. We have gained some sense of how medieval and early modern musical production was evaluated in its time by the interests it served by means of archival notations recording payments to musicians (including performers, composers, and teachers) in the forms of currency, real estate, ecclesiastical benefices, or even wine and clothing. Beginning with the relatively well-documented musical artists of the fifteenth century who have served musicology for more than a century as organizing nodes on the historiographical timeline of late medieval musical styles (for example, Guillaume Du Fay, Johannes Ockeghem, Antoine Busnoys, Josquin Desprez), such traces of the money trail have enriched our understanding of musical transmission and reception, along with music’s supporting role in specific institutional or dynastic enterprises.1 That late medieval composers themselves were cognizant of the mundane financial parameters of their craft is revealed by the popularity of songs referring to money (and specifically to the musician’s lack of it) such as “Adieu mes amours.”2
